Foundation shoulder pads



Sept. 25, 1956 w. MITCHELL 2,763,870

FOUNDATION SHOULDER PADS Filed Feb. 18, 1954 United States Patent Ofiice 2,763,870 Patented Sept. 25, 1956 FOUNDATION SHOULDER PADS William Mitchell, New York, N. Y.

Application February 18, 1954, Serial No. 411,037

3 Claims. (Cl. 2-255) This invention relates to a shoulder pad and more particularly to a shoulder pad which functions as a foundation piece for building a garment thereon.

It is an object of this invention to provide co-acting shoulder pads which function as a foundation for a garment.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a pair oi shoulder pads adapted to be secured together and coact as a foundation for a coat or like garment.

These and other objects of this invention will become apparent upon reading the following disclosure in conjunction With the accompanying drawing in which,

Fig. l is a back view of a pair of co-acting shoulder pads secured together to form a stable foundation piece,

Fig. 2 is a top view of a right shoulder pad,

Fig. 3 is a back side elevation of the shoulder pad of Fig. 2 and Fig. 4 is a section view taken on line 33 of Fig. 3.

Referring to the drawing a shoulder pad element 1 is provided with a shoulder cup section 2 and a flap section 3, said sections being sewn together in planar relationship and hence without overlapping of sections at seam line 4.

An inner pad support 5 (Fig. 4) is disposed between shoulder cup section 2 and a flap section 3 as shown in outline in Fig. 3. The support 5 is firmly sewn to sections 2 and 3 by a plurality of continous contour stitches 6. The sections 2 and 3 are secured together at seam line 4 by stitches 7.

The sections 2 and 3 may themselves be divided into sub-sections. Thus shoulder cup section 2 may be and preferably is divided into subsections 8 and 9, while the flap section 3 is made up of sub-sections 10 and 11.

A neck line of appropriate contour is formed by the neckline section 12 of flap sub-section 10 and the neckline section 13 of flap sub-section 11. The neckline of a right shoulder pad is a continuous graceful curvatured line and adapted to continuously and gracefully blend with the neckline of a left shoulder pad on a human form (Fig. 1).

Flap sub-sections 10 and 11 are sewn together in planar relationship along seam line 14, and the shoulder cup sub-sections 8 and 9 are also sewn together in planar relationship along seam line 15 which latter is continuous to scam line 14.

It is thus apparent that the foundation shoulder pad of this invention, which is preferably made of felt is made of four sub-section pieces, namely depending shoulder cup sub-sections 8 and 9 and the horizontally disposed flap sub-sections 10 and 11. These four sub-sections are curvatured so that a shoulder shaped cavity is effected in the unitary shoulder pad structure (Figs. 2 and 3).

The unitary structure having a cavity to fit a shoulder is provided with the interiorly disposed cushion support piece 5.

This support piece 5, preferably is made from flannel like material having a rigid woven backing strip. Felted cotton is preferably disposed between said flannel material and said backing to obtain a cushion or padding effect. The material used for support piece 5 is of conventional manufacture. This support piece 5 may be of unitary structure or may consist of two half sections sewn together with the resulting searn line disposed directly below seam lines 14 and 15. It is evident that the support piece 5 functions to unify the structure of the shoulder pad since it is sewn to all four sub-sections thereof, and because of the cushion eifect due to the fiannel it gracefully supports the garment weight when disposed upon a human shoulder.

As shown in Fig. 2 the right flap sub-section 11 is provided with a tab segment 16. This tab portion is adjustably overlapped and sewn together to the corresponding tab segment 16 of a left shoulder pad (Fig. 1), with the necklines of said right and left shoulder pads maintaining a continuous merging symmetry.

Clearly this foundation pad effects even distribution of the coat or garment weight across both the back and both shoulders at all times thereby gracefully balancing the weight of the garment. The necklines of the co-acting right and left shoulder pads merge to a snug fit, with the neckline of each individual shoulder pad also effecting a snug fit.

The foundation pad will hold the shape of the garment regardless of rough usage of the garment or long suspension on coat hooks or coat hangers.

Furthermore, this foundation piece off-sets and provides for overcoming deformities or irregularities of varying human shoulders, so that a garment having this shoulder pad built therein hangs naturally regardless of such deformities.

This invention is illustrated and described by a single embodiment but all other obvious embodiments are intended to be covered by the claims herein.

I claim:

1. A foundation bi-shoulder pad for garments comprising a right shoulder pad having a tab segment having a neckline having an inwardly extending curved edge adapted to be disposed behind and also adjacent to the right side of the neck, and a corresponding left shoulder pad having a tab segment having a neckline having an inwardly extending curved edge adapted to be disposed behind and also adjacent to the left side of the neck, said tab segments being disposed over and fixedly secured to one another in overlapping relationship with the neckline of the tab segment of the right shoulder pad merging with the neckline of the tab segment of the left shoulder pad.

2. A foundation shoulder pad unit consisting of a flap section having a flap sub-section integral with said flap section and a tab segment having a neckline having an inwardly extending curved edge adapted to be disposed behind the neck of the respective side of the shoulder pad, said flap section consisting of two flap sub-sections one of which has said tab segment, said sub-sections being secured together along a seam line adapted to be disposed medially over the respective shoulder, and a shoulder cup section dependingly secured to said flap section, said shoulder cup section consisting of two shoulder cup sub-sections secured together along a seam line which line is linearly disposed to the seam line joining the sub-sections of said flap section.

3. The pad of claim 2 having a cushion support secured to all of the sub-sections of the shoulder pad.

Yaghubian Dec. 25, 1951 Petit Apr. 1, 1952 

